Friday, April 27, 2012

Niiya gets a strange letter in his locker one day, providing a meet-up later in the back of the school. While Yuuko and Tomome vainly wait for him at the Club Room, Niiya goes to meet the sender of the letter. The sender turns out to be a girl who warns him about Yuuko being evil and the cause of several disappearances. She also reveals that she is Kanoe Kirie, whose grandmother is the younger sister of Kanoe Yuuko, the ghost of their school. According to her, Yuuko is so embittered by her own demise that she seeks to bring other students to her world and make them suffer as she did. Though chilled by the Kirie's warning, Niiya doesn't really believe her. After Kirie leaves, Yuuko finds Niiya near the shrine. Because it has been raining, she is soaked to the bone, requiring her to change into dry clothes. While at the infirmary, Yuuko does her best in teasing Niiya and this is the situation that Kirie stumbles upon when she arrives there to save Niiya. Her presence allows Niiya to see Yuuko the way Kirie does: black, tangled hair, rotting flesh. Afraid of Yuuko for the first time, Niiya allows Kirie to drag him out of the infirmary but Yuuko comes after them. They run towards the Club Room where Kirie has an idea of finding Yuuko's body after Niiya accidentally reveals that he knows where it is. In the Club Room, Yuuko manages to grab Niiya while Kirie runs straight into the basement. Alone with him, Yuuko tells Niiya that she has been alone for so long that when Niiya, who can see and feel her, came along, she was so happy. After hearing this, Niiya manages to swallow his own fear and wills himself to imagine Yuuko as he has always seen her. And just like that, Yuuko returns to her previous form. Niiya then declares that he needs to examine her real body more closely to find out how she died. At the basement, Niiya finds Kirie squatting on the ground crying. Nearby is Yuuko's bones. They both discover that one of Yuuko's legs was broken, which lead them to surmise that the story about an accident may be true and that Yuuko may have been trapped in that basement until her death. Further along the basement, they also discover some spirit wards stuck to a piece of rock. Kirie realizes that the story about the evil spirit may also be true but somewhere along the way, that story and Yuuko's unfortunate demise got mixed up. Now that things are a little clearer, Kirie still insists that Niiya view Yuuko with some suspicion. And as if to make sure that he does just that, Kirie shows up at the next club meeting, declaring that she will not apologize. Yuuko doesn't take offense though and instead welcomes her to the club.

COMMENTS:Kirie's introduction. Ok, so she's related to Yuuko. Interesting. What's more interesting is whether Yuuko's death is related to whatever evil spirit is sealed inside that rock. The fan service is still there. It's making me feel uncomfortable now. But I'm going to give this series another go. Now, at least we're done with the character introductions so maybe we can get down to the real stuff -- the mystery of Yuuko's death.